


Destiny

by kayisdreaming



Category: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: Gen, more a character exploration than anything else
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-08
Updated: 2020-12-08
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:54:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27952682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kayisdreaming/pseuds/kayisdreaming
Summary: A short insight to what was going through Zelda's head as she watched Link do, well, perhaps not everything befitting of a hero.
Relationships: Link & Zelda (Legend of Zelda)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 40





	Destiny

“Destiny” had always been the thorn jabbing at Zelda's spine and the shackles around her ankles. Destiny had kept her dreams just outside her grasp, deemed her skills too unimportant for use. It had been the definition of her existence, the expectation that she could not fail, and the terror that she would.

Destiny had said a great many things about her past and her future. It had said that she would fight Ganon. It had said that she would help seal him. It had said that they would be free of the cycle of pain and suffering. It had never said that it would force her to walk into a void, awareness limited to her link to what destiny deemed her constant companions.

Most notably now, there was Calamity Ganon. The very thing she had been born to seal and destroy, now linked inexorably to her very existence. When his power soared, it tore at her, the pain nearly unbearable as she struggled to hold herself together; duty and love were the only things keeping him from ripping her apart. When his power waned, she could breathe and she could see.

Though it wasn’t like there was much benefit for a hundred years. The beast that she bound—and that, in return, bound her—was rage and fury and despair incarnate. If it had been a man before, it couldn’t even resemble a man’s shadow now. If it once could be pitied, the only mercy to be found would be in its death. Not that she hadn’t tried before, but if kept trying it would drag her into a darkness far deeper and more consuming than the void around her. Her efforts hadn’t stopped Ganon’s attempts to devour her anyway, if only for its bonds to be freed and its revenge upon destiny to be absolute.

At least there was a light in the darkness, one that kept her from surrendering just yet to the ceaseless nothingness that licked at her fingers and toes. The light wasn’t hope, or determination, or even the lingering remnants of destiny.

It followed the line that linked her soul to the other victim of destiny, back to Link.

Link was her only window to the outside world, her only means of witnessing the world that had fallen to shambles even without Ganon’s direct influence. He walked across crumbling roads that had once been highways for travel and trade, now passageways for monsters. He stepped into once pristine temples and citadels that were now barely more than skeletons, left to rot without anyone to visit them. He helped villages that had once been the very epitome of Hyrule, now barely able to hold onto their own history.

True, this should have thrust her more into despair. And, initially, it had.

But there was something soothing to be found from the boy who could remember nothing. He could look at crumbled stone and shattered statues without memory’s sting hounding his every step. In itself, it was tragic; but the lack left space for curiosity—a curiosity that had him delve into the deepest secrets of the ruins, finding knowledge that Zelda could only have dreamed of when her feet had once been on land. He could climb the old temples and citadels in ways he originally would have known as sacrilege, and yet from there he could see such beauty and majesty that one had to wonder if that was the proper way all along.

As she watched him, she found that in so many ways he was not the boy she had known and—to a now regrettable extent—envied. But in so many other ways, he was.

She could see it in the way he looked at the shrines that had once been her greatest curiosity. To him, they weren’t mysteries that could save them, or secrets to unknown power. They were a path he needed to take, an obstacle he needed to overcome. His solutions weren’t the wisest, or the fastest, or even the most conventional. His solutions often ended in ancient orbs flying, flinging himself across the shrine, and nearly falling to his death. They included the strangest uses of the Shiekah Slate—certainly not what its original creators had designed for it. They were tactics _she_ certainly never would have fathomed; and yet they were just as successful, if not more so.

It was the way that he fought carelessly, often to the detriment of his own equipment. Before the Master Sword, he had more weapons than bokoblin had teeth. Not as an avid collector—but because he shattered them incessantly. His focus was often singular; while it made him admirably driven, it often left him in a state where he had to fight with a shield or his fists. At least he had the Slate now, but it was a miracle that hadn’t shattered when fighting weaponless against Hinox tormenting nearby villages.

He was perhaps more familiar when he stared at towers covered in malice, gaze focused as he skirted the poison’s effects. It didn’t matter how many things stood in his way; he leapt at monsters foolish enough to dare, and shot at the eyes lingering in malice’s toxin with an efficient expertise that even the knights of the past would have envied. He fought and ran and jumped and fought more even as his breath became labored and his injuries sapped his strength. He always fought here like he knew she was watching—like he knew she could see him and he wanted her to know he was _trying_.

But that wasn’t who Link was. Memories or not, he didn’t do things because people were watching, or because there was something to be won. True, perhaps he helped the people of his old allies because there was a gain—without their support, he could not reach the Divine Beasts. But he had nothing to gain from catching cucos, or cooking with a child, or pursuing the old history of the Gerudo Desert, or entertaining the whims of the Great Fairies, or piecing together the stories of the Zora. He did those things because people asked—because they needed help. With every step, he effortlessly broadened his world, even if there was nothing to gain.

There were things that were new, too. As time passed, Zelda couldn’t be sure if it was merely a response to lingering regrets spawned from his first death, or perhaps it was because there was no kingdom to control him anymore. That creativity was used to try and land on the ancient dragons, which would have been fatal if not for his unbelievable stamina on his glider. The carelessness had turned him into a sort of weapons collector, which had resolved the risk of fighting without a weapon, but often resulted poorly in thunderstorms. That determination was used to treat Lionel like common mounts, which more often than not left him thrown and riddled with arrows. That easy amiability was used to tease the stablemasters with creatures that barely qualified as horses.

Perhaps what was most new, though, was _fun_. With the Calamity looming over their heads, they had lacked any such luxury. Zelda had been scolded for any rest in her training, and Link was likely reprimanded for any slacking in his (if not by others, then certainly by himself). Their exploration to the ruins and other lands had been a luxury only granted because it still served the people. She allowed herself some minor enjoyment in her research and in the ancient ruins. She _let_ herself smile.

But she was certain Link never did. He hardly ever smiled—not that she had terribly cared back then—except perhaps when he was cooking. He still smiled when he cooked now, though it was graced with a soft hum that had startled her when she first heard it.

But there were also things far less practical. He stacked metal boxes just to see how high they would go. He glided halfway across the continent from the top of the tower just to amuse an overly curious man. He flung rocks at Guardians just to watch them flip and flail. He dodged and parried Yiga until they backflipped off hills. Today, he was using a valuable, jewel-encrusted shield to sled down a snowy mountain—just to see if he could break a bored girl’s record.

Zelda smiled as he laughed and cheered and waved up the mountain to the furious girl so far away that there was no way Link had been seen. 

The Calamity still loomed above them. Ganon was still picking at her strength, waiting for the moment she would shatter. Someday soon, Link would be expected to embrace his destiny, and she would be forced to embrace hers, and they would face the Calamity for one last time.

But, for today, he could smile. He could enjoy the life that he never allowed himself to have the first time around. And Zelda could watch, and let herself smile, too. 


End file.
